David Christensen is an

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

film director and producer who since October 2007 has been an executive producer with the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary fi ...

(NFB) at its Northwest Centre, based in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city an ...

Directing

His directorial credits include the 2003 NFB-co-produced documentary ''War Hospital'', co-directed with Damien Lewis, and his 2006 dramatic feature debut film, ''

Six Figures ''Six Figures'' is the second studio album by American rapper D-Shot, released on July 29, 1997, on Jive Records and D-Shot's own label, Shot Records. The album was produced by Femi Ojetunde, Levitti, Studio Ton and D-Shot. It peaked at number ...

''. A documentary filmmaker until ''Six Figures'', Christensen prepared for the project by taking a workshop on directing actors with Judith Weston. ''Six Figures'' was nominated for the

Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Award for Best Screenplay The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television presents one or more annual awards for the Best Screenplay for a Canadian film. Originally presented in 1968 as part of the Canadian Film Awards, from 1980 until 2012 the award continued as part of the Ge ...

at the

26th Genie Awards The 26th Genie Awards were held on March 13, 2006 to honour films released in 2005. The ceremony was held at The Carlu theatre in Toronto. The ceremony was hosted by Lisa Ray and Terry David Mulligan. Nominees and winners The Genie Award winner ...

, and was a runner up for the Best Canadian Film Award from the

Toronto Film Critics Association The Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) is an organization of film critics from Toronto-based publications. As of 1999, the TFCA is a member of the FIPRESCI. History The Toronto Film Critics Association is the official organization of Toron ...

Producing

As head of the NFB's Edmonton studio, Christensen develops films from across the province of Alberta as well as

northern Canada Northern Canada, colloquially the North or the Territories, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories an ...

. In 2015, Christensen produced

Guy Maddin Guy Maddin (born February 28, 1956) is a Canadian screenwriter, director, author, cinematographer, and film editor of both features and short films, as well as an installation artist, from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Since completing his first film i ...

and Evan Johnson's feature, '' The Forbidden Room'', and the feature documentary '' Hadwin's Judgement'', based in part on

John Vaillant John Vaillant (born June 4, 1962) is an American-Canadian writer and journalist whose work has appeared in ''The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic'', and '' Outside''. He has written both non-fiction and fiction books. Personal life ...

's book ''The Golden Spruce'' about

Grant Hadwin Thomas Grant Hadwin (born October 25, 1949) was a Canadian forest engineer. In January 1997, he felled Kiidk'yaas (also known as "the Golden Spruce"), a Sitka Spruce tree located on the Haida Gwaii archipelago and considered sacred by the Haida ...

. The same year, Christensen also developed a short film series to tell the stories of small rural communities across southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, '' The Grasslands Project''. His recent productions also include ''

Everything Will Be ''Everything Will Be'' is a 2014 documentary film about the changing face of Vancouver's Chinatown, directed by Julia Kwan and produced by David Christensen for the National Film Board of Canada. ''Everything Will Be'' was the first documentary fi ...

'', a 2014 documentary film about the fate of Vancouver's Chinatown, for which he approached Vancouver filmmaker

Julia Kwan Julia Kwan is a Canadians, Canadian screenwriter, director, and occasional producer of her own short and feature films. She has brought a keen sense of the Chinese-Canadian cultural experience to her films. Several of the films were made in conjun ...

to direct her first non-fiction film. Other credits include ''

Wiebo's War ''Wiebo's War'' is a 2011 Canadian documentary about eco-warrior Wiebo Ludwig, directed by David York. Ludwig was first approached by York in 2008. Filming began in late 2008 and continued into 2010, with York living as a guest in the isolated Lud ...

'' (executive producer), ''

Vanishing Point A vanishing point is a point on the image plane of a perspective drawing where the two-dimensional perspective projections of mutually parallel lines in three-dimensional space appear to converge. When the set of parallel lines is perpendicul ...

'' (producer/executive producer) and ''

We Were Children ''We Were Children'' is a 2012 Canadian documentary film about the experiences of First Nations children in the Canadian Indian residential school system. Directed by Tim Wolochatiuk and written by Jason Sherman, the film recounts the experience ...

'' (producer/executive producer).

Other film work

He is a co-founder of the

Calgary Cinematheque Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, making ...

and curated two film programs for the

Alberta College of Art and Design The Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) is a public art university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that operates four academic schools. The institution originated from the art departme ...

References

External links

*
''War Hospital''
at the National Film Board of Canada {{DEFAULTSORT:Christensen, David Canadian documentary film directors National Film Board of Canada people Canadian documentary film producers Film directors from Edmonton Film curators Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)